Moving from The UK to the USA

You are sitting in London, looking across the Atlantic and eyeing up opportunities in the world’s biggest children’s book market. What do you do next? With Egmont USA now poised to launch its first list in 2009, we ask just what it takes to start up a publishing house in a new country.

Part of the Egmont UK group of companies, the new children’s publishing house, officially launched on January 1st 2008 with no books and a staff of two. It now has a staff of eight and will debut its first list of 15 books in autumn ’09.

“We had two reasons for considering the USA,” says Rob McMenemy, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Egmont UK. “Firstly, we wanted to defend our ability to attract the best children’s
publishing rights, which was under attack from US based publishers who were increasingly acquiring world’s English language rights before we had even had a chance to pitch. Secondly, and more positively, the US represented a huge market opportunity – in fact, the world’s biggest - and we were confident we had something to offer, namely a track record and reputation as an originating publisher with a high-quality list.”

Once the decision had been made to look into the potential of a new publishing house in the US, the key decision was to have a strong team behind it. Cally Poplak, Director of Egmont Press in the UK, Carsten Møller, Chief Financial Officer, Rob McMenemy and Douglas Pocock formerly Group Sales Director, Egmont UK and now Executive Vice President, Egmont USA formed the core team with support from the numerous others in the UK business.

Research, research, research
The natural first step for the planning team was to research the market thoroughly. While Egmont has a well-established name and presence in Europe, it was almost unknown in the United States. Douglas Pocock says: “When you first look at it, the US market can feel very similar to the market in the UK. Our instinct and initial fact-finding told us there were opportunities for us but we didn’t want to make the mistake of making assumptions.

“To help us, we took on two excellent consultants in the US to gather insight and give us in-depth information on the market and competitive landscape and also the distribution opportunity and costs.  Using this insight we ran a complex business model, effectively projecting a ten year plan.”

This initial research presented two options: going for it alone or a as joint-venture. “At first a joint venture
looked like a very strong option,” Pocock recalls. “What we felt we needed most was a partner with a thorough knowledge of the market and established credibility with the trade. But, as we met the publishers we had pin-pointed as potential partners, we learned so much that we decided to go for it alone. Since one of our key aims was to acquire rights for the group, this bold option gave us much more flexibility.”

Just a year after the idea was first discussed at the offices of Egmont UK and a lot of careful planning, the business was given the go-ahead following a series of pitch meetings with the UK Board, Frank Knau, Executive Vice President of Egmont International and his senior manager’s group and ultimately by Steffen Kragh, President and CEO of Egmont.

“We had worked hard to put together a clear, quantified and scalable rationale and plan,“ Rob McMenemy says. “Frank and Steffen’s advice was clear too - to get the right team and get the sales and distribution right.”

Challenges
Getting the sales and distribution right proved a tough challenge. With no list of books and no track record in the US, getting through the door of ‘A list’ distribution partners took a lot of persistence. “It was a vital first step in getting the company on its feet,” Pocock stresses. “We needed a top-of-the-league distribution partner to convince agents, authors and retailers that we meant business.

“Naturally, everyone we pitched our business to wanted to make sure we were the right fit for them too. Some thought we would be too closely in competition with them and others wanted to keep us too close for our comfort so that we couldn’t compete. In many ways it was a compliment that they already thought we could be a threat to their business, but obviously it wasn’t helping us to find a partner.”

Finally, the novice Egmont USA landed a sales and distribution partner. Pocock continues, “We couldn’t have done better than our partnership with Random House, the worlds biggest publlishing house. It is the cream of the ’A-list’ distributors and a calling card for us with authors, agents and retailers”

With a top-of-the-league distributor secured, the time had come to put the US team in place. As before, credibility and reputation were of paramount importance. One of the key appointments was for a publisher who could build a quality commercial fiction list for children of all ages and would work closely with Cally Poplak and the Egmont Press team in the UK. Elizabeth Law joined Egmont USA from Simon and Schuster, the publishing house.

Douglas Pocock says: “Elizabeth came to us with a wealth of experience in publishing top authors and handling some of the best loved properties in the industry. Shortly afterwards Regina Griffin joined us as Executive Editor. With their appointments, the work of attracting authors and agents could really begin for Egmont USA.”

Setting up
However, the practicalities of setting up the office were another challenge for the business. “Absolutely everything was different from the UK,“ Pocock laughs. “Never underestimate the time it takes to set up a bank account, find a phone company, get insurance, find a lawyer and numerous other things essential for starting a business. When you don’t have an established network it’s hugely time-consuming.”

Asked what his top tips would be, Pocock doesn’t hesitate: “Get a great assistant or troubleshooter right at the start and set up your bank account as soon as you can. We’ve been really lucky, people have been very willing help us set up, even other publishers but it’s definitely been tough.”

Trans-Atlantic Collaboration
The Egmont USA business was set up with collaboration in mind. While the aim is to build the buzz around a new US children’s fiction list and present the company as American, the editorial teams in
the UK and USA work closely to share leads and acquire joint rights whenever possible.

Pocock says: “Close collaboration between the UK and US teams has really set us apart from the competition, where usually this doesn’t work. There is also a genuine commitment to win bigger books for the group than we would have been able to do without a UK and US presence.”

At Egmont USA’s first party for agents held, fittingly, at New York’s Scandinavia House, the two teams presented a united front which was very well received.

George Nicholson, senior agent at Sterling Lord was quoted in the US industry magazine Publisher’s Weekly as saying the new division was a great opportunity for agents and writers and called Egmont UK ‘extraordinarily inventive’. He said: “I think it was only a matter of time before they set foot in this country. (Egmont) seems to be very conscious of the fact that they have to be perceived as an American company and I have every reason to think they’ll do that well.”